All those people saying that we shouldn’t write off RIM just yet, that BlackBerry 10 will be the moment the Canadian manufacturer turns it around, may actually have a point.
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Perhaps the strongest evidence for this is that it appears to have the developers on board. Over the weekend RIM held two portathons, during which developers were urged to port their apps over to BB10. During that time, it says, some 15 000 developers ported their apps over to the new operating system.
well there you have it.37.5 hours in, we hit 15,000 apps for this portathon.Feel like I’ve run a marathon.Thanks to all the devs!
— Alec Saunders (@asaunders) January 13, 2013
Those numbers probably aren’t hurt by the incentives the company’s been doling out to people willing to build for the platform. Back in September, RIM guaranteed developers that they would make at least US$10 000 in download in sales if their apps were certified “Built for BlackBerry”. Then it took things a step further and offered to make up the difference for any app that doesn’t hit the downloads mark. In addition, it gave developers the chance to win a BlackBerry 10 device.
BlackBerry representatives have also said that RIM already has around 90% of the biggest apps on board for the launch of BB10, which is critical if it’s going to steal back a little marketshare from Apple and Android.
It voids the conundrum Microsoft’s been stuck in since the launch of Windows Phone 8: people won’t move over because there aren’t enough apps and the app makers won’t build for it because adoption isn’t high enough.
With all the apps it needs and what appears to be an astonishingly good looking OS, all RIM will need to do is convince people that it’s got its cool back. Simple really.
